Effects of Savings And Credit Cooperatives on Poverty Status of Cereal Crop Farmers in Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract            

This study assessed "The effects of savings and credit cooperative on poverty reduction among cereal crop farmers in the Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria". The study employed a multistage sampling technique to select a sample of 198 out of 617 crop farmers for interview using structured questionnaires. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Double Difference Estimator, Likert-Scale and Logistic regression model. The amount of per capita household expenditure needed to bring any household to the non-poor line according to analysis of poverty index line was N10,934.10. Out of 198 respondents sampled, 102 crop farmers belong to SACCOS and also were beneficiaries of SACCOS, while 96 farmers were not members of SACCOS. The poverty status of the farmers' households revealed that out the 102 cooperators, 82.4% was non-poor, while 17.6% of them were poor. Out of96 non-cooperators, only 38.5% were non-poor, while 61.5% were poor.The result of the Logistic regression model revealed that household size (z = 2 .53), farming as main occupation (z = 2.15) and farm size (z = -2.62) were statistically significant at 5% level of significance, while annual income (z = -4.47) and interest rate (z = -4.01) were statistically significant at 1% level of significance. The result of the double difference estimator showed that income of all the cooperators before joining SACCOS was N302,000, which appreciaied to N502_.580 after joining SACCOS; while the mean income of all the non-cooperators was N356,000. The factors militating against the sustainability ofSACCOS include lack of capital (M=3.03), Corruption (M=3.18), Inadequate government supportive role affects the management of cooperative society (111=2.97), Lack of co__operation by members (.lv/=3.83), Lack of clear guide (M=3.00), Politicization of Cooperative activities (M=2.51), and High interest rate (M=3. l 1). It is concluded that membership of SACCOS has positive impact on poverty alleviation and farmers' income. It is therefore recommended that SACCOS should be made more accessible in order to encourage more farmers' participation.